Longing
by HR always live on
Summary: Set post S10, and Harry is still wallowing in grief a year later. He's so lonely and he doesn't know how to carry on. Hopeful one shot. Now edited to be a two shot.
1. Chapter 1

**So I wrote this one shot about a month ago and forgot about it completely. May be a bit repetitive to some of my previous stuff, but thought it was better to post than leave it sitting on my computer. Set post S10.**

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><p>Harry sighed heavily, kicking his shoes off and loosening his tie. It has been a long and painful year. A very, very long year without her. He'd only been able to carry on because he had work to ground him. Work to completely lose himself in so he didn't dwell on the aching gnawing and completely constant pain of her loss. He'd said… after her funeral, he'd agreed to work a year so he'd get his full pension and train up his replacement. But that wasn't the reason he stayed on the grid. He <em><strong>needed<strong>_ the work. Now he'd finished his year, the Olympics was over, his replacement was in office and he was a free, retired man. He could have anything he wanted. Except the one thing he did want. He closed his eyes, remembering her beautiful face, her gorgeous eyes which were now rotting six feet under the earth.

He still slept badly, his last waking images usually being of Ruth bleeding to death in his arms. He could only sleep these days if he'd been self medicated on whisky. He knew he was only a couple of steps away from becoming an alcoholic, but even knowing that, he couldn't draw back. Alcohol was the only thing that both helped him sleep and numbed the pain of her death a bit. A very little bit.

He felt a little afraid that things were beginning to fade from his mind and his memories of her. The last voicemail recording she'd left on his phone (that he'd only found after her death) had been listened to a thousand times. He felt himself starting to forget her voice. The precise timbre of it and the lilt. Just beginning to fade at the edges, not entirely sure which had once been real and which belonged to his imagination. He hated himself for the tiny pieces of her he was losing to his fallible human memory. Only natural, but he still hated it and himself for it.

Looking at the whisky bottle with less than a third in it, he vowed not to drink more than that and open another bottle. She'd have hated it had she seen the mess he'd brought himself to. He had to cut back on the alcohol and he needed to find something to fill up his empty days. He'd given absolutely everything to the job, MI5 and his country that he still loved, even with everything it'd taken from him. His family. Any chance with his two children, most of his adult life and the woman he loved more than any of the lies and secrets he'd had to keep. All gone.

The one thing he was grateful for was that when she'd died, she had known how he felt. They'd had an unwitting audience in Dimitri and Erin, but at the time they'd only had eyes for each other. Sasha Gavrik had been very angry and upset and he'd shot without thinking, probably aiming to kill Harry. But Ruth had stood in front of him, getting annoyingly in the way. Harry couldn't forgive himself for going outside the bunker unarmed. What an idiot. Ruth had crumpled to the ground, instantly having difficulty breathing. Harry followed her to the ground, clamping a hand to the gunshot wound. She'd moaned in pain as his hand pressed against her body.

"You'll be alright," he said.

"Oh… Harry, I can't stand it when you lie to me." She took a shuddering breath and he curved a hand around her face gently as their eyes locked onto each other. "Harry, I don't want… Please don't sell my house. My cottage. I want you to keep it."

"You're not dying."

"Well if I'm not, then good," she said with a shudder. "But just in case."

"Okay, I'll keep the house," he said, not wanting to argue. "Ruth… I love you."

A ghost of a smile occurred on her face. "I thought you were convinced I wasn't dying."

"Well," he said. "Just in case."

"Ah!" she cried as he redoubled his grip on her wound. "That hurts."

"I know," he said.

"Love you too, Harry," she said. "I always did. Even when you're arrogant and pig headed and wrong."

"When compared to you, I'm usually wrong, Ruth."

"I love the way you say my name," she admitted. Her eyes kept fluttering closed for longer and longer moments. Harry's hand was covered in her blood and he wondered how much longer she had. Not long as it turned out. She said nothing more than his name, murmured a couple of times as she lay dying in his arms.

He swallowed the whisky in his glass in one gulp, trying to block the memory. Her deathly pale face as they'd parted clear in his mind. Forcing it aside, he instead remember her leaving him on the Thames years ago. It had been sad and it'd hurt, but comparatively it was easy. He'd let her go because it was the safest option. He didn't go after her because it was the best thing for her. To allow her to move on past him. Over those three years of her absence from London he'd never stopped thinking of her. Occasionally wishing for her professional brilliance, always wishing for her sparkle. But when she'd come back, that sparkle had gone. George. And section D, they'd both pulled it out of her. He'd hoped that when they retired together, she'd have a little of that carefree joy back. Maybe not, but he would have loved to know. Loved to have her with him long enough to find out. He didn't know enough, and that held him back in his imagination. He didn't know what she looked like when she woke up, the sunlight across her face. He didn't know if she sang in the shower. Whether she liked to sleep on the right or left side of the bed. Little homely things that didn't really matter, but it saddened him how much he didn't know about her.

The doorbell rang but he ignored it. After Halloween and the recent loud parties in the area, there'd been a lot of prank calls, and he'd learnt not to be too bothered by it. And certainly not to bother getting up for it. The whisky bottle still had a smattering in it and he debated drinking it or going to bed. The doorbell rang again and Harry listened more carefully. There wasn't any noise outside that could be revellers being kicked out of the pub, or teens having fun. He got up to answer it, deciding against taking the gun out of its hiding place. If someone wanted to kill him, he'd only put up a token protest. If he died, he might be back with Ruth again.

He opened the door and for a moment his heart stopped. Maybe he had died and gone to heaven. Ruth stood on his doorstep, biting her lip and looking nervous. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on hers, terrified that if he moved, she'd vanish into the ether. He walked to her, slowly.

"Hello Harry."

He wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in her neck as he breathed heavily. She still smelled like her, felt like her. Warm. Real. Alive. He ran his hands over her body gently, caressing the contours of her body as he'd done a thousand times in his fantasies and dreams of her. She wore an oversized jumper and jeans, something he'd never seen her in before, and even before he consciously thought it, his hand sneaked under the hem of her jumper, finding the small of her back and caressing the naked warm skin there. Fingers tracing her spine gently.

He drew back from kissing her neck, looking into her eyes. They stood much closer than they ever had before and her arms were loose around his body, as if hesitant of touching him. "Are you real, Ruth?"

"Yes," she said. "I'm here, Harry." He leaned forward and captured her lips with his own, needing to touch her. Needing to know on a deeper level that she truly was here with him. His hand became entwined with her hair as the kiss got deeper, her tongue exploring his mouth as they both became bolder. Her lips were full, soft and eager and he moaned into her mouth. "Ruth… I…"

"What?" she asked quietly, her eyes glazed over with passion.

"I need you," he said. "I've missed you so badly and I… want you so much." His hand moved lower, cupping her bum through her jeans and pulling her body against him. She didn't protest, instead running a hand over his stubbled cheek, her fingertips ending up brushing the hollow of his throat. He swallowed, feeling a surge of desire go through him.

"Come inside," he murmured. "It's cold."

"I hadn't noticed," she said quietly, teasing him very slightly. He gripped her hand very tightly as they crossed the threshold, closing his door and almost instantly, Harry pushed her up against it, a thigh pressed between her legs, a hand on her waist and the most ardent kiss she'd ever known. His other hand caressed her face gently and she closed her eyes, feeling completely surrounded by Harry. After enjoying the kiss for several minutes, she twisted away from him, turning her face to the side. "I'm not going to disappear," she said. "I'm not going to vanish like smoke, Harry. I'm here."

He looked at her, his gaze intense and brimming with emotions. "Ruth…"

"I'm not… you're not dreaming," she said gently, her hand cradling his face, her thumb stroking his skin gently. "I'm really here." He kissed her again, this time gently and sweetly. "I'm here." And he held onto her for dear life, never wanting to let her go again.

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><p><strong>I'd love a review if you have a few seconds. Thanks for reading.<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**A lot of people asked for more information after the last chapter, so I wrote this one to fill in the back story. Hopefully it doesn't have too many gaping holes in it, and some good old HR goodness.**

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><p>Harry focused on his right arm, lying across Ruth's naked abdomen, his fingertips curling around her hip. He could feel the hardness of her bone under his fingers, the warmth and softness of her stomach against his forearm. He focused completely on the wondrous feeling of her against his naked skin with his eyes closed. Breathing in deeply, he could smell sex in the bedroom, and he smiled.<p>

Making a decision to move, he fumbled for her, finding her shoulder with his lips and he pressed a kiss to her skin. "I'm sorry," he said, feeling a faint sense of shame. Not nearly enough to regret what had happened, but he still felt he owed her an apology. Their first time had been nothing like what he'd pictured, what he'd spent months and years imagining and dreaming of. It'd been an urgent, desperate fuck, hands and lips trying to reach any skin they possibly could. And over far too quickly. Since Ruth'd come into the house, he'd not remembered speaking a single sentence to her. They'd just pulled each others clothes off as they stumbled up the stairs and fell on the bed. They'd come together very quickly, the event being over in mere minutes, until they parted, both gasping for air and replete.

Because it'd happened so fast he was unable to separate actions and feelings and emotions, everything folding into several moments of pure sensation. He remembered pushing her against his bedroom door and sucking her nipples as she groped blindly for the light switch, wanting to see him. Her biting his shoulder as he stroked her clitoris with his thumb. His fingernails digging in to her back, her palm cupping his balls and gently squeezing. The look on her face as she came, the moaning and panting in his ear. All those moments were blurring into each other and he closed his eyes, wanting to commit it all to memory.

"Sorry for what?" Her voice was slurred and he smiled at that.

"Well," he said, rolling onto his side facing her, one hand on her hip protectively. "That wasn't how I intended our first time to be."

"Mm," she said. She wriggled up the bed and pulled the bed sheets around them both. Leaning on her elbow, she looked at him.

"Where've you been, Ruth?" he asked desperately. "You've been gone for a year. I thought you dead. How are you not dead?"

"I didn't stay away by choice, Harry," she said, her eyes sad. "I promise you. We were so close, and I wouldn't have walked away from that."

"What happened?" he asked, stroking her hair gently, as if to reassure himself that she was still there.

"It's a long story," she said.

"We have time," he said. "We do, don't we?" he asked, suddenly feeling a thrill of fear.

"Yes," she said, covering his hand with her own. "I'm not vanishing on you again."

"What happened?" he repeated.

She didn't answer directly. "You didn't see me," she said. "After I was shot, you didn't ask to see my body?"

"No," he said with a firmness that surprised her. "To see you lying cold and still on a mortuary slab…. All the life seeped out of you. I c… I couldn't do that. I didn't want my last memory of you to be you with a white dead face, lying on a metal tray. That's not what I wanted. I wanted my last memories of you to be when you asked me to leave the service with you. When you told me you loved me, even though you were dying in my arms. Or I thought you were, at any rate."

"I don't remember," she said quietly, her palm stroking his chest.

"Remember what?"

"Being shot," she said. "I remember asking you to leave MI5 with me, I remember the smile on your face." She smiled herself at the memory. "I'd never seen a smile like that on your face. I remember Sasha coming towards us, and nothing more. It's all black."

"Nothing at all?" he asked, feeling much more than disappointed that her possible final moments hadn't imprinted on her permanent memory.

"No," she said. "I thought it might come back in time, but it hasn't. The next thing I remember is drifting in and out of consciousness on the helicopter."

"I need you to tell me," he said firmly. "If I'd have known you were alive, nothing would have stopped me trying to find you. Nothing. If I'd have known your funeral was fake…" His voice broke, and he couldn't go on.

"I'm so sorry," she said. She closed her eyes and put her hand on his chest, over his heart. "I don't know exactly how I was smuggled out of the country. I was far too far out of it to notice. I think that one of the paramedics… were working for the... organisation. I found that out later. I came around in a hospital, or something like it in Russia."

"Russia?" he asked warily.

"As far as I know, it was nothing to do with the Gavrik's," she said, correctly anticipating his suspicion. "It was just a coincidence. They wanted a lot of space where no one would be nosing into what they were doing."

"So, a hospital in Russia," he prompted as she showed signs of falling silent.

"Well, if you look at my abdomen…. It's a mess." He had noticed that she had surgical scars that looked less than clean, but they'd been much too frantic in their coupling for him to mention it.

"I had seen it," he said, stroking her stomach gently.

"It wasn't done by a British doctor. Probably some hack in Russia when they quickly realised I'd die without it. Anyway, once I recovered I was… presented with two options. Either I could work for them for a year, or they'd kill you."

"And you believed them, just like that?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Well, no," she said. "I'm shortening the story, because right now I'm feeling happy and I don't want to remember how terrified I was at the time." He conceded that she had a point. "They told me they had people in London. And that after my funeral you weren't setting the alarms at your house and were turning into a mute alcoholic. They said it'd be easy to kill you." That gave Harry pause, because it was true. He had become very lax in his security, not really caring if someone killed him at the time. And the time around her funeral had been… blurry to say the least, down to whisky and copious drinking. It'd taken Catherine to shake him out of it, and though he'd still been relying on the whisky, he could at least remember the days that passed.

"Who were you working for?" he asked.

"An international agency," she said. "Terrorism. It was… very, very organised and there were people of all nationalities there. Most spoke English, but all races. Black, white, middle Eastern, Asian. Anything you could think of. The general aim was to destroy the Western way of living, or at least give them enough to fear. It was like a terrorist MI5. Huge. I wasn't allowed to leave the compound and I was watched most of the time."

"What did they want from you?" he asked quietly.

"To work for them. Help them in their goals of planting bombs and gaining information."

"And you did it without a qualm?" he asked.

"Of course not," she said, eyes wide. "But I wanted to stay alive and come home to you. I was frightened. I tried my best to stop the operations I was aware of. Who do you think sent section D the anonymous tip off about the bombs at the Olympic athletics stadium? And the Diamond jubilee flotilla, with all those boats and the Queen in attendance. London was a big target this year, you know that."

"That was you?" he asked quietly. "You tipped us off?"

"I couldn't let bombs go off in my capital city, Harry," she said. "I was being complicit in so much already and… " she shook her head.

"How did you get out?"

"Erin," she said shortly. "Once they thought I could be trusted, I managed to send Erin encrypted emails. While I didn't manage to send her everything, I gave her enough that she could get me out of there, and catch the bastards in charge."

"You were emailing Erin," he said flatly. More of a statement than a question. "And you couldn't find it in you to tell me you were alive?"

"Don't be angry," she said. "I wanted to. I wanted to talk to you so badly, but if I did that, you wouldn't have stopped looking for me. And if you'd started to do that, I was terrified they'd kill you. Or decide I was more trouble than I was worth." He paused, thinking that through. "And it wasn't like I was having long conversations with Erin. I was sending her the shortest emails imaginable, trying to do it unobtrusively. We didn't actually talk until yesterday."

"But Ruth…"

"How would you have felt, if you knew I hadn't died, and yet I never made it out of there alive? Would that've been worse?"

"I'd have got you out of there, and much quicker."

"But what if it'd gone wrong?" she said quietly. "It so easily could have, Harry. And I wanted to come home, alive."

"One word, Ruth," he said. "To know you were alive. I'd have waited for you to come home, if it was best for you. But to know that I'd one day see your face again. I…" His voice broke and he felt tears prick his eyes. She put an arm around his waist as he got himself under control.

"Would you have even believed an email like that, or would you have felt like someone was deliberately trying to hurt you?" Ruth asked. "No, I just felt it was better that way. Maybe I was wrong, but I had to make a choice. I'm so sorry, Harry." They entwined themselves together, pressing gentle kisses to each other until they lapsed into silence.

After all, the details of their separation weren't as important as the fact that they were both together right now.

He moved his hand down her back and cupped her bum while pulling her close. He could feel himself becoming aroused again and she smiled at him, fingers entwining in his hair.

"Marry me, Ruth," he murmured, holding her tightly against him. "I love you. I don't ever want to live without you, not again."

Her face showed total shock for a moment, before she got control of herself again. "Are you sure you want that," she said quietly. "Or is it some other part of your anatomy talking?" she asked, her hand drifting down and squeezing gently. He drew in a sharp breath before he pulled her hand away.

"I'm serious, Ruth. I want to marry you."

"Harry, that's so… sudden."

"No, it's not," he said. "I've known you for a decade, I've been in love with you for years, and for us it's not sudden at all. At the risk of sounding completely desperate, I can't be without you." Her face softened into a smile. "Is that a yes?"

"That's a "you're insane" smile," she said. Even as she was speaking, she let her fingers caress his face gently.

"Not a no, though," he said.

"Are you just saying this after the high of sex, or do you honestly want this?"

"There's an engagement ring in my safe," he said. "For you."

"Has anyone else worn it?" she asked in curiosity.

"Well…"

"I'm not taking a second hand ring from your ex wife," she said instantly, eyes wide. Harry smiled, knowing this meant she was, at the very least considering it. "Stop smiling like that," she said, smiling herself.

"It was never Jane's," he said quietly. "It belonged to my mother."

"What?" she asked blankly.

"Mm, she passed it down to me," he said. "When she knew she was dying, she told me to give it to a woman I loved. Specifically not Jane. Our marriage was breaking down at the time, and she'd never liked Jane anyway."

"I can't take your mothers ring," Ruth said quietly. "You might end up hating me in five years time."

"Forgive me for being optimistic, but that sounds like a yes," he murmured.

"Well, it'd be stupid to turn you down twice," she said, eyes glinting with pleasure. She barely got to the end of her sentence before he kissed her deeply, his hands wandering over her back.

"I love you too, Harry," she said, when she broke free for air. "And I don't ever want to leave you again."

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><p><strong>Really the end this time. Hope you can leave a review and thanks for reading.<strong>


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